my views on the local news in Minnesota

Newspeak

April 25, 2008

AP reports that the Bush administration is changing the words to be used in describing islamic terrorists:

Don't call them jihadists any more.

And don't call al-Qaida a movement.

The Bush administration has launched a new front in the war on terrorism, this time targeting language.

Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center, are telling their people not to describe Islamic extremists as "jihadists" or "mujahedeen," according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. Lingo like "Islamo-fascism" is out, too.

The reason: Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offense to moderates.

U.S. officials may be "unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims," says a Homeland Security report. It's entitled "Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims."

"Regarding 'jihad,' even if it is accurate to reference the term, it may not be strategic because it glamorizes terrorism, imbues terrorists with religious authority they do not have and damages relations with Muslims around the world," the report says.

Language is critical in the war on terror, says another document, an internal "official use only" memorandum circulating through Washington entitled "Words that Work and Words that Don't: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication."

The memo, originally prepared in March by the Extremist Messaging Branch at the National Counter Terrorism Center, was approved for diplomatic use this week by the State Department, which plans to distribute a version to all U.S. embassies, officials said.

"It's not what you say but what they hear," the memo says in bold italic lettering, listing 14 points about how to better present the war on terrorism.

What should we call them, then? Max Boot tells us that the Brits are using the term "anti-Islamic activity” to refer to what Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are doing.

The British government, which led the move in this direction, has adopted the phrase “anti-Islamic activity” to refer to what Al Qaeda and its ilk are up to. That doesn’t seem much of an improvement to me: Isn’t it a little presumptuous of non-Muslim governments to decide what activities are “anti-Islamic”?

The U.S. government reports, which are being adopted by the State Department and other agencies, counsel using more anodyne phrases such as “violent extremist” or “terrorist.” But while less likely to give offense, those terms are also so vague as not to be helpful in many contexts. As many critics of the phrase “global war on terror” have pointed out, we are not fighting all terrorists–i.e., we are not mobilizing the resources of the U.S. government to destroy the ETA or the Tamil Tigers. Another possible suggestion is to use “religious extremists” or something similar. But that doesn’t help much either, because it suggests that bin Laden et al. are genuinely religious, and it also doesn’t distinguish them from, say, abortion-clinic bombers.

The term takfiri is both more accurate and less likely to give offense to normal Muslims, insofar as it refers to the practice of bin Laden & Co. of declaring Muslims who disagree with their extreme teachings as apostates. Unfortunately, almost no one in the Western world knows what takfiri means, so it’s not a word likely to come tripping off the tongues of our leaders.

A related quandary is what to call the offensive against these whatchamacallits. The use of “war” may well go the way of “jihadist” on the grounds that it inflames Muslims into thinking we are waging a war against all of them and that it actually elevates people who are simply criminals into semi-legitimate combatants. In 2005, the Rumsfeld Pentagon tried to move away from “war” by coming up with GSAVE–the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism–as its preferred term. That was roundly hooted down and mercifully disappeared when President Bush got wind of it.

Orwell described how words are used to try to shape our understanding of reality. What is the political agenda behind this move?